I stepped into the dim aisle between the stacks. The white morning light dropped low at the entrance, and between the shelves only every other fluorescent light on the ceiling was lit.
There were only a few people about. At the far end of the aisle, an older man stood alone before a shelf, drawing out a book and turning back its cover. He didn't look up as I came farther in.
My soles sank ever so slightly into the thin carpet, and the close quiet of the stacks settled down over my head.
The labels on the ends of the shelves slid past at the edge of my vision. Japanese History, Historical Documents, Local Records, Folklore Studies. At the fourth, I stopped.
The shelves were tall. The second shelf from the top was so high that my fingertips could only just reach it on tiptoe.
I traced the second shelf with my eyes, from left to right. A blue spine, a reddish-brown spine, a black spine with gold foil, a dark brown spine, a grayish blue, a deep green spine. My gaze stopped on one. An old cloth-bound volume, grayish blue.
Oral Traditions of Eastern Japan.
I looked up at it. It wasn't that I wanted to read it, or that I didn't. For no particular reason, I thought I would try reaching for that one book. That was all, and it was what had stopped me there.
The sound of pages turning at the far end of the aisle had stopped at some point.
I lifted my heels slightly and stretched my right hand upward. The strap of my bag slipped off my shoulder. Just short of the spine, my fingertips paused for a moment.
Then the side of my finger touched the old cloth spine. It was cold. Right beside the cold was the faintest warmth. The warmth of a finger that was not my own.
Through the gap above the shelf, the side of a finger reaching from the other side lay just alongside mine. Two people's fingers rested on a single book.
Of the weight I had tried to draw out, exactly three fingers' worth was carried off to the other side. It stayed clearly in my palm, the brief sensation of the book losing its balance.
"Ah." Whether the sound actually escaped me or not, I couldn't be sure.
Almost at the same instant, we both drew our hands back. Still on tiptoe, I closed my hand lightly in front of my chest. A faint warmth still lingered at my fingertips.
At the edge of my vision there was only a shadow on the other side of the shelf. I didn't turn my face toward it.
Then, once more, a hand reached out from beyond the shelf.
This time it came over the top edge of the shelf, passing smoothly above my head, the fingers crossing the upper edge of my vision. A very faint shadow reached the topmost corner of the cloth-bound spine. In a single motion, without wavering, without any wasted movement.
The pad of a finger tipped the spine back toward itself, and the cloth spine, brushing lightly against the edge of the book beside it, was drawn out of the shelf.
The book paused briefly at a height above my head, and then, between the fingers on the other side, it was slowly turned over once. The old grayish-blue cloth of the back cover came down facing me. The title stayed turned away and never showed.
I raised both hands, my right at the top edge, my left at the bottom. The faint ridges of the weave pressed into my palms. The weight shifted slowly toward me, and the whole weight of the cloth-bound book dropped into my hands.
I turned the book over once in front of my chest. The cover faced me. In an old typeface, set vertically, the title: Oral Traditions of Eastern Japan. A slight wear along the edges of the lettering.
I wrapped my palms around its edges and held it again, pressing the cover to my chest. On my fingertips lingered the feel of fine dust from the very top edge of the spine.
Still on tiptoe, a thin tension rising once in my calves, I leaned my upper body slightly forward. Keeping my gaze on the cover, I lowered my eyes and bowed my head, briefly, just once.
At the bottom of the bow, for the briefest moment, my breath stopped. My forehead all but touching the book at my chest, I stayed there. Then I slowly lowered my heels to the floor.
In the light coming in from the entrance, a single, very faint sign of a new season had begun to stir.